lldap - Light LDAP implementation for authentication

LDAP made easy.

About
Installation
Client configuration
Comparisons with other services
- vs OpenLDAP
- vs FreeIPA
I can't log in!
Contributions

About

This project is a lightweight authentication server that provides an opinionated, simplified LDAP interface for authentication. It integrates with many backends, from KeyCloak to Authelia to Nextcloud and more!

It comes with a frontend that makes user management easy, and allows users to edit their own details or reset their password by email.

The goal is not to provide a full LDAP server; if you're interested in that, check out OpenLDAP. This server is a user management system that is:

simple to setup (no messing around with slapd),
simple to manage (friendly web UI),
low resources,
opinionated with basic defaults so you don't have to understand the subtleties of LDAP.

It mostly targets self-hosting servers, with open-source components like Nextcloud, Airsonic and so on that only support LDAP as a source of external authentication.

For more features (OAuth/OpenID support, reverse proxy, ...) you can install other components (KeyCloak, Authelia, ...) using this server as the source of truth for users, via LDAP.

By default, the data is stored in SQLite, but you can swap the backend with MySQL/MariaDB or PostgreSQL.

Installation

With Docker

The image is available at nitnelave/lldap. You should persist the /data folder, which contains your configuration, the database and the private key file.

Configure the server by copying the lldap_config.docker_template.toml to /data/lldap_config.toml and updating the configuration values (especially the jwt_secret and ldap_user_pass, unless you override them with env variables). Environment variables should be prefixed with LLDAP_ to override the configuration.

If the lldap_config.toml doesn't exist when starting up, LLDAP will use default one. The default admin password is password, you can change the password later using the web interface.

Secrets can also be set through a file. The filename should be specified by the variables LLDAP_JWT_SECRET_FILE or LLDAP_LDAP_USER_PASS_FILE, and the file contents are loaded into the respective configuration parameters. Note that _FILE variables take precedence.

Example for docker compose:

You can use either the :latest tag image or :stable as used in this example.
:latest tag image contains recently pushed code or feature tests, in which some instability can be expected.
If UID and GID no defined LLDAP will use default UID and GID number 1000.
If no TZ is set, default UTC timezone will be used.

version: "3"

volumes:
  lldap_data:
    driver: local

services:
  lldap:
    image: nitnelave/lldap:stable
    ports:
      # For LDAP
      - "3890:3890"
      # For the web front-end
      - "17170:17170"
    volumes:
      - "lldap_data:/data"
      # Alternatively, you can mount a local folder
      # - "./lldap_data:/data"
    environment:
      - UID=####
      - GID=####
      - TZ=####/####
      - LLDAP_JWT_SECRET=REPLACE_WITH_RANDOM
      - LLDAP_LDAP_USER_PASS=REPLACE_WITH_PASSWORD
      - LLDAP_LDAP_BASE_DN=dc=example,dc=com
      # You can also set a different database:
      # - LLDAP_DATABASE_URL=mysql://mysql-user:password@mysql-server/my-database
      # - LLDAP_DATABASE_URL=postgres://postgres-user:password@postgres-server/my-database

Then the service will listen on two ports, one for LDAP and one for the web front-end.

With Kubernetes

See https://github.com/Evantage-WS/lldap-kubernetes for a LLDAP deployment for Kubernetes

From source

Backend

To compile the project, you'll need:

curl and gzip: sudo apt install curl gzip
Rust/Cargo: rustup.rs

Then you can compile the server (and the migration tool if you want):

cargo build --release -p lldap -p migration-tool

The resulting binaries will be in ./target/release/. Alternatively, you can just run cargo run -- run to run the server.

Frontend

To bring up the server, you'll need to compile the frontend. In addition to cargo, you'll need:

WASM-pack: cargo install wasm-pack

Then you can build the frontend files with

./app/build.sh

(you'll need to run this after every front-end change to update the WASM package served).

The default config is in src/infra/configuration.rs, but you can override it by creating an lldap_config.toml, setting environment variables or passing arguments to cargo run. Have a look at the docker template: lldap_config.docker_template.toml.

You can also install it as a systemd service, see lldap.service.

Cross-compilation

Docker images are provided for AMD64, ARM64 and ARM/V7.

If you want to cross-compile yourself, you can do so by installing cross:

cargo install cross
cross build --target=armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf -p lldap --release
./app/build.sh

(Replace armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf with the correct Rust target for your device.)

You can then get the compiled server binary in target/armv7-unknown-linux-musleabihf/release/lldap and the various needed files (index.html, main.js, pkg folder) in the app folder. Copy them to the Raspberry Pi (or other target), with the folder structure maintained (app files in an app folder next to the binary).

Client configuration

Compatible services

Most services that can use LDAP as an authentication provider should work out of the box. For new services, it's possible that they require a bit of tweaking on LLDAP's side to make things work. In that case, just create an issue with the relevant details (logs of the service, LLDAP logs with verbose=true in the config).

General configuration guide

To configure the services that will talk to LLDAP, here are the values:

The LDAP user DN is from the configuration. By default, cn=admin,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com.
The LDAP password is from the configuration (same as to log in to the web UI).
The users are all located in ou=people, + the base DN, so by default user bob is at cn=bob,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com.
Similarly, the groups are located in ou=groups, so the group family will be at cn=family,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com.

Testing group membership through memberOf is supported, so you can have a filter like: (memberOf=cn=admins,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com).

The administrator group for LLDAP is lldap_admin: anyone in this group has admin rights in the Web UI. Most LDAP integrations should instead use a user in the lldap_strict_readonly or lldap_password_manager group, to avoid granting full administration access to many services.

Sample client configurations

Some specific clients have been tested to work and come with sample configuration files, or guides. See the example_configs folder for help with:

Migrating from SQLite

If you started with an SQLite database and would like to migrate to MySQL/MariaDB or PostgreSQL, check out the DB migration docs.

Comparisons with other services

vs OpenLDAP

OpenLDAP is a monster of a service that implements all of LDAP and all of its extensions, plus some of its own. That said, if you need all that flexibility, it might be what you need! Note that installation can be a bit painful (figuring out how to use slapd) and people have mixed experiences following tutorials online. If you don't configure it properly, you might end up storing passwords in clear, so a breach of your server would reveal all the stored passwords!

OpenLDAP doesn't come with a UI: if you want a web interface, you'll have to install one (not that many look nice) and configure it.

LLDAP is much simpler to setup, has a much smaller image (10x smaller, 20x if you add PhpLdapAdmin), and comes packed with its own purpose-built web UI. However, it's not as flexible as OpenLDAP.

vs FreeIPA

FreeIPA is the one-stop shop for identity management: LDAP, Kerberos, NTP, DNS, Samba, you name it, it has it. In addition to user management, it also does security policies, single sign-on, certificate management, linux account management and so on.

If you need all of that, go for it! Keep in mind that a more complex system is more complex to maintain, though.

LLDAP is much lighter to run (<10 MB RAM including the DB), easier to configure (no messing around with DNS or security policies) and simpler to use. It also comes conveniently packed in a docker container.

vs Kanidm

Kanidm is an up-and-coming Rust identity management platform, covering all your bases: OAuth, Linux accounts, SSH keys, Radius, WebAuthn. It comes with a (read-only) LDAPS server.

It's fairly easy to install and does much more; but their LDAP server is read-only, and by having more moving parts it is inherently more complex. If you don't need to modify the users through LDAP and you're planning on installing something like KeyCloak to provide modern identity protocols, check out Kanidm.

I can't log in!

If you just set up the server, can get to the login page but the password you set isn't working, try the following:

(For docker): Make sure that the /data folder is persistent, either to a docker volume or mounted from the host filesystem.
Check if there is a lldap_config.toml file (either in /data for docker or in the current directory). If there isn't, copy lldap_config.docker_template.toml there, and fill in the various values (passwords, secrets, ...).
Check if there is a users.db file (either in /data for docker or where you specified the DB URL, which defaults to the current directory). If there isn't, check that the user running the command (user with ID 10001 for docker) has the rights to write to the /data folder. If in doubt, you can chmod 777 /data (or whatever the folder) to make it world-writeable.
Make sure you restart the server.
If it's still not working, join the Discord server to ask for help.

Contributions

Contributions are welcome! Just fork and open a PR. Or just file a bug.

We don't have a code of conduct, just be respectful and remember that it's just normal people doing this for free on their free time.

Make sure that you run cargo fmt from the root before creating the PR. And if you change the GraphQL interface, you'll need to regenerate the schema by running ./export_schema.sh.

Join our Discord server if you have any questions!